This invention relates generally to article feed mechanisms and sorters and, more specifically, to drive units for use with vibratory feeder bowls and parts separators.
Vibratory feeder bowls and parts separators typically urge parts upwardly along a spiral path by vibrating the spiral path both axially along and rotationally about its central axis. As such, vibratory drive or base units are required to provide the necessary vibratory motion and, in many instances, are provided as separate attachable units. Prior art vibratory drive units have heretofore focused generally on improvements in the overall combination drive unit and feeder bowl and/or parts separator, rather than on improvements to the particular vibratory drive unit. Examples of these devices can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,239,103 to Feldpausch, U.S. Pat. No. 3,966,040 to Hazelwood, U.S. Pat. No. 2,964,182 to Spurlin and U.S. Pat. No. 3,007,565 to Yoshikawa.
Still other devices have attempted to provide a universal vibratory drive unit which, in and of itself, has a reduced overall size and weight and is compatible with a variety of different feed bowls and/or parts separators. For example, some drive units include both peripheral and central mounting arrangements compatible with different feeder bowl mounting arrangements.
Nevertheless, there is always a need for an improved universal vibratory drive unit. For example, because vibratory feeder bowls and parts separators may not always have a common driven direction of rotation (i.e., clockwise or counterclockwise), is desirable to have a vibratory drive unit which is compatible with both clockwise and counterclockwise driven feeder bowls and parts separators. Further, such a vibratory drive unit should have a reduced overall size and weight.